Wonder Woman Film

One of the problems with making a Wonder Woman
movie is deciding what her costume will be.

When are they finally going to make a Wonder Woman movie?

And it is every bit as awesome as say... Batman Begins?

It makes me wonder if the USA will finally have a female president BEFORE a Wonder Woman movie is made... Well, at least I have my priorities straight.

Honestly, I know the powers-that-be have a plan to bring Wonder Woman to film - but only as a spinoff to the Justice League films that are upcoming. The plan is to make the upcoming Superman Vs Batman movie, then make a Justice League movie, and then have off-shoot movies for the various Justice League members.

As to who will be playing Wonder Woman, the current casting for Batman Vs Superman is "Gal Gadot". There was a lot of speculation in the past as to who it might be. The images below were made by fans - including 3 different ideas for her costume.

Merry Christmas Kitten

Merry Christmas Kitten

Artwork of Women Riding Tigers

Paintings / artwork of women riding tigers seems to be some kind of thematic stereotype. Makes me wonder what Freud would think of it.

Paintings of Battle Cat

When I was a kid I remember playing with He-Man / Masters of the Universe... I dedicate this page to paintings of Battle Cat. Battle Cat was four legs of awesomeness.

I especially like the last painting. :)

Eye of the Tiger on Piano Keyboard

Eye of the Tiger on Piano Keyboard

Painting of a Kid riding a Snow Leopard

Painting of a Kid riding a Snow Leopard

Yawning Tiger

I love tigers.

Right up until the point they attack and eat me.

Invisible Archery for Cats

Becoming a Vegan

So I recently decided to become a vegan - partially because I am dating a vegan, but also because I have been veggie-curious for several years now. Not because of ethical reasons, simply because I am getting older and I need to be eating healthier. (According to my research most vegans become vegans because of ethical reasons and that it is a tiny percentage of vegans who do so purely because of health reasons.)

I mean, yes, I like cats. I am very much a cat person, but I really could not care less about chickens, pigs or cows. Does that make me a hypocrite? Maybe. I think I am just practical, and my current decision is based on my health - not the welfare of chickens.

However the problem I am encountering is there isn't a lot of vegan friendly restaurants where I live or near where I work. More than a bit annoying. I had clue that it was so hard to find vegan restaurants in Toronto.

So I tried finding a list of vegan restaurants in Toronto and one of the sites I found was one about real estate, called Vegan Friendly Neighbourhoods in Toronto, which talks about the Vegan Village in Roncesvalles / High Park North.

Vegan Options in the Vegan Village

It is called the Vegan Village because of the sheer number of vegan restaurants, or even raw vegan restaurants like Rawlicious, and also because of the number of vegan / vegetarian grocery stores in the area like The Sweet Potato and others.

So maybe when it comes to finding restaurants I just need to visit the Vegan Village more often.

I have been to Rawlicious before and they have the best smoothies I have ever had at a restaurant. Better even the ones I make at home.

However none of this helps my goal of being able to find vegan food near where I work. I admit there are "a few" places downtown walking distance from where I work, but they are all 10 to 15 minutes away. Which means if I go there then I am spending 20 to 30 minutes walking, and really only have 30-40 minutes to eat and relax. Not much of a lunch break.

There is a cafeteria in my building but they only sell prepackaged salads and apples. That is it.

Vegan Options near the Downtown Core of Toronto

I have heard the sob stories of former vegans and vegetarians who decide to go back to being omnivores just because it is more convenient and practical for them to eat out, eat socially, etc. It apparently has given rise to "Social Omnivores / At Home Vegans", who only eat meat when they're with friends/family/work colleagues, and eat like vegans or vegetarians when they are at home.

Lets call them SOAHVs for short. There might be a more commonly used term for such people, but lets use SOAHVs for now.

I think the issue for SOAHVs is that they tried to go purely vegan or vegetarian, but they couldn't do it properly because there aren't enough restaurants that have vegan/vegetarian options - and not enough purely vegan restaurants for those people who refuse to eat at a place where meat might accidentally touch their food (as if somehow the broccoli becomes just as bad as pork if it just briefly touches the pork). After realizing they are losing an uphill battle against a society that prefers to be omnivores, they give up and decide to go back to being an omnivore whenever they are at any social event, eating out, etc simply because of the convenience.

Although the guy in the comic strip below ordering a porterhouse steak rare seems to have abandoned all hope entirely.

How to shoot carp in midair

I saw this in a book and thought it was hilarious. Bowfishing is amazing!

Now you might wonder what a carp looks like up close.

Here is a photo I took at the grocery store. Not the best photo I admit, but $3.97 per pound is apparently the going rate at the local grocery store.

Why blogging is like essay writing

Some people compare blogging to journalism.

But really, most bloggers are not journalists.

Sure, they might sometimes talk about the news. But they are rarely reporting it.

Rather, blogging is more like essay writing. You write the essay, but unlike all those essays you did in university you don't have to worry about marks like you did back then. It is not like you are writing a dissertation that has to be "perfect", instead you can actually have fun writing your essay.

Sometimes it isn't even like an essay. Sometimes it is more like "Hey look, cute kitten photos!"

Like these kitten photos below. :)

Which means it isn't really journalism or essay writing either. In that respect blogging is more like scrapbooking - collecting photos and then putting them in your scrapbook as a collection of odd things.

And then there is the name "blogging", which is short for "web logging" - which means blogging is a bit like writing in a log book (like the captain of a ship). Which means blogging is more like a diary or journal.

So lets summarize here.

Blogging is

1 part journalism
1 part essay writing
1 part scrapbook
1 part diary / journal

It is no wonder we had to invent a new word to describe all the activities that a blogger does.

After all if only did journalism, or only essay writing, or only scrapbooking, or only writing in our diary - it would be kind of boring. But being all 4 at once allows us to do more innovative ways to use the technology at our fingertips.

And truth be told, while technology often annoys me, in this case I see benefits. Blogging provides a lot more freedom.

And what is more, it also creates an audience. Which means it is entertaining, and educational.

And anything that is educational can also legally break copyright laws - because if you share something for educational purposes, it falls into the terms of fair use.

And it means, that since bloggers are not journalists that bloggers should be held up to the same rigorous laws that journalists are. Which means you can call a criminal a crook, even if they are not convicted of the crime. (Although you might still get sued for defamation if the crook has a lot of money to throw around.)

Anywho, I think I have made my point.

Oh, I forgot one thing...

1 part rant

In other words, a chance for people to just complain about things that annoy them.

And now I shall stop stating the obvious. I am content that my point has been made.

Toronto Indoor Archery Range

Toronto is getting an indoor archery range! Huzzah!

The range will be operating on a members only basis with a waiting list.

Annual membership is $800 + HST. (Think of it like a gym membership.)

To get your name on the waiting list contact cardiotrek@gmail.com for details.

Which means you won't be freezing outside to do archery like in the photo below, and can enjoy warmth indoors instead.

The Music Horn

I just like this painting.

It is called "The Music Horn".

I don't even know who the artist is.

Would be nice to know however.

If you know who the artist is, please post in the comments below.

Why you should get your hearing checked by an audiologist

As someone who suffers from hearing loss I am a strong supporter of getting your hearing checked. Below is an article I found on the topic. Don't worry that it focuses on the elderly, many people suffer hearing loss at different stages of their lives.

Myself I personally enjoy visiting my current audiologist in Oakville (he is so talkative) and he provides free hearing tests, so even if you buy nothing from him at least you are getting a free hearing test and talking to someone who genuinely cares about people who have hearing loss like myself.

Anywho, back to the article below. I am posting it in the hope that people out there who have noticed they don't hear as well as they used to will be inspired to go get their hearing tested. Just google your local city and the words free hearing test and you should be able to find a place that provides hearing tests for free.

Especially if you work in a place where you are surrounded by loud noises regularly or constantly. Many people have hearing difficulties from working in places that are too noisy and harmful to their ears.

Hearing Loss in the Elderly and Subordinate Side Effects

By D. Eze

Hearing loss affects people of all ages for a variety of reasons. Some children are unfortunately born unable to hear very well, some people progressively lose their hearing over time and hearing loss is prone to many people above a certain age. This hearing loss can be a result of many different reasons including degenerative diseases, through the natural degeneration of hearing over time as part of old age or through some sort of traumatic event that severally affects hearing almost in an instant.

Despite the variety of reasons and causes of hearing loss, hearing loss overwhelming affects those at retirement age. Statistics say that one in three people from ages ranging from 64 - 75 will have some sort of hearing loss and one in two individuals over the age of 75 will be dealing with hearing loss. These are overwhelming numbers when one thinks about it. If one were to add that number of baby boomers who are about to be or already are at retirement age, hearing loss is becoming a major issue in our society today. Our mothers, fathers, aunts and uncles are currently dealing with substantial hearing loss and we do not even know it.

Some might say that hearing loss is not that bad of an issue and that people can cope with it by simply asking other to speak louder, but this is misleading. Hearing loss can in and of itself affect ones standard of living. "Especially in the elderly, hearing loss can impair the exchange of information, thus significantly impacting everyday life, causing loneliness, isolation, dependence, and frustration, as well as communication disorders" (Bianchini, Ciorba, Pelucchi and Pastore, 2012). It can also lead to dementia, depression, memory loss and stress. These are all physical and mental states that should be avoided especially for elderly people.

A recent study has looked to see the factors that lead to hearing loss in a varied group of Americans. The results of the study have shown that with people who have moderate hearing loss about 43% actually where hearing aids with those who have mild hearing loss the number drops dramatically to 3.4% (Lin, Thorpe, Gorden-Salant and Ferrucci, 2011). This shows that people only see to seek to get help for their hearing loss when it becomes more progressive as opposed to when it is just starting. More visits to an audiologist after the age of 50 can help to mitigate the issues that come with hearing loss much more quickly and increase the elderly populations quality of life much earlier.

Therefore why suffer when something like hearing loss and it subordinate effects can be dealt with in a relatively easy fashion. A quick visit to the audiologist and spending some time being fitted with a hearing aid can mitigate all of the bad side effects of hearing loss and greatly improve ones standard of living overnight.

To some a visit to the audiologist might be daunting. Most people have not been to a audiologist or do not know what going to an audiologist might entail. But going to the audiologist is very similar to going to the optometrist. It is a very short process where the doctor will test how well you are able to use your hearing against a standard of measurement and using various auditory testing equipment. In the end the audiologist will provide you with an apparatus that will allow you to hear better if need be or provide you with information and suggested equipment that will allow you to prevent further hearing loss. Specifically for an audiology test you will subjected to hearing sounds of different tone, volume and frequency. This is in order to ensure that the audiologist is able to determine the breath of the hearing loss as well as the source of the hearing loss. Depending on your needs, the audiologist will decide on which tests to perform and develop a plan to resolve your hearing loss issues.

Hearing is often the ignored sense. If our ability to see is diminished even slightly we all are very aware of it and often seek to fix the problem immediately, but with hearing it is usually something we consider not important enough to investigate. Additionally, for the elderly, when one ignores their inevitable hearing loss it can lead to very dire consequences. The fact is an hour test can preserve a very important sense and ensure that your quality of life is not unnecessarily diminished. Got get that test, if need be go get that hearing aid. Your ears will thank you.

Sources

C. Bianchini, A. Ciorba, S. Pelucchi, A. Pastore. (2012). The impact of hearing loss on the quality of life of elderly adults. Clinical Interventions in Aging. 7, 159-163. http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC3393360/reload=0;jsessionid=AELCaUJ7cNkXolRlK0rx.24

F. Lin, R, Thorpe, S. Gorden-Salant & L. Ferrucci. (2011). Hearing Loss Prevalence and Risk Factors Among Older Adults in the United States. The Journals of Gerontology, 66A(5), 582-590. http://biomedgerontology.oxfordjournals.org/content/66A/5/582.short

Telling off a noisy customer

Many years ago (decades in fact) when I was a teenager I was working in a store and trying to serve a customer. I say trying because I could not hear over the racket another customer was making.

You see we had this old customer who would come into the store and try to scam the people at the checkout line by claiming they gave him the wrong purchases and/or the wrong change back and that he wanted his money back. And he did it all the time, at least once per week.

It got to be so annoying that my boss even put up a sign, just for him, saying that all sales are final after you leave the store.

The old guy would complain very loudly until the manager came, and then the manager would talk to him until he eventually gave up his scam and left. But he would be back next week trying to pull the same scam all over again.

So this one time I was trying to help this nice elderly lady who spoke almost in a whisper. I simply could not hear her over the racket the old noisy jerk was making...

So I yelled at him. "Would you shut the hell up! I am trying to help a customer here and I cannot hear her because you are making all that noise."

And then the most amazing thing happened. He was quiet.

And he avoided me from then onwards.

And when he did come in to pull his scam, he was quieter about it.

And eventually the old jerk stopped coming to the store. Maybe he died. I don't know.

But what I do know is that my boss talked to me after the incident. She didn't punish me or anything.

If anything I saw something in her eyes that showed her true feelings.

Pride.

Is my neighbour schizophrenic?

How would I know if my neighbour was schizophrenic?

It is an interesting question.

It isn't like I can just ask him, he might take that as a grave insult. (What if becomes even more paranoid and thinks I am watching him?)

I think I would have to look at his symptoms and behaviour.

While moving into our apartment my girlfriend and I learned that our neighbour was a bit of a jerk. (I am paraphrasing here, the other neighbours we met described him using a word that starts with A and ends with hole.)

So I found a list of schizophrenia symptoms...

• Social withdrawal
• Hostility or suspiciousness
• Deterioration of personal hygiene
• Flat, expressionless gaze
• Inability to cry or express joy
• Inappropriate laughter or crying
• Depression
• Oversleeping or insomnia
• Odd or irrational statements
• Forgetful; unable to concentrate
• Extreme reaction to criticism
• Strange use of words or way of speaking

So social withdrawal and hostility fits the jerk description. But what about his insistence that he hears banging noises (see my previous post on this topic) coming from our apartment?

Schizophrenic people sometimes hear voices. But noises???

So I tried googling that and found the following page:

http://www.schizophrenia.com/family/delusions.html

Which had this written on it:

"In the acute phases of schizophrenia, patients are likely to insist they are hearing voices that no one else can hear. Sometimes they hear noises, clicks or non-word sounds. On occasion they are disturbed by seeing, smelling or feeling things that others do not."

So... yeah. Apparently acute schizophrenia can cause people to hear noises. Like banging for example.

I know for example that I can sometimes hear music in my head. I know there is no actual sound there, but I am thinking about so strongly it feels like I can actually hear it.

But banging noises? Nope. That is crazy talk right there.

So as far as I can tell my crazy neighbour is suffering from acute schizophrenia and is delusional to the point that he is hearing sounds that are not really there.

Noisy Neighbour? Not Me!

I just accused by my neighbour of making loud banging noises for a large chunk of today.

Which is bizarre, because for a large chunk of today I was outside shopping and was not even home. When I was home I unpacked the things I purchased and then sat down to work on my blog. So the loudest things in our apartment was my girlfriend listening to music and me typing.

So as far as I am concerned he is barking up the wrong tree. He should be bothering some other neighbour with his complaints.

After my neighbour left my girlfriend joked:

"That couldn't have been us banging, we haven't had sex in days."

The Toronto Poetry Club - Should I join?

I recently learned that someone has restarted the Toronto Poetry Club on Meetup.com.

I am not much of a poet, but I am very tempted to join just so I can hone my poetry skills.

Two years ago the Toronto Poetry Club was an ever growing presence in Toronto's poetry community and then the president of the club (who had some serious issues that made him difficult to deal with) forced out the vice president. After that incident the club faltered without the leadership skills of the vice president and the president, unable to cope with stress fell off the wagon and let the poetry club slide into oblivion, which led to the Meetup group being deleted in December 2013.

But there is good news. Several poets from the group has convinced the old vice president to come back and restart the group from scratch, becoming the new president of the Toronto Poetry Club.

With these changes the group is now back on track with strong leadership, but is low on members since the old group (which had 300+ poets in it) was deleted and all their contact info was lost.

The new president also is bringing back the old Poetry Circle Meetings, which was far less intimidating for people who were too shy to stand up on a podium. Reading poetry aloud in a poetry circle is much less stressful for people who have difficulty with public speaking because the circle is more of a social atmosphere and welcoming.

One of the failures of the old president was that he was so focused on trying to make money off of the poetry club. He was trying to turn the poetry club into events where he could charge people fees for attending. The new president is having none of that. Every meeting is free to attend and there is a donation jar that goes towards supporting the website.

And all these factors tell me that this is a club that I would like to join. It makes me happy because a group like that needs strong leadership that is willing to put in the extra hours to make the group a success and isn't going to become a greedy jerk who wants to squeeze every member for their money.

As if poets weren't already poor enough.

But things are looking up. New leadership, new poetry meetings, a more comfortable / less formal meeting environment. These are positive changes.

So my feeling is that the Toronto Poetry Club has my vote of confidence. I will be signing up for the next meeting for sure.

My Rant on Playing Dumb

On Sunday I had an argument with my girlfriend on the way to an Oscar party.

At stake was the Toronto Escalator Rules, which I shall repost now for everyone's benefit so you don't have to click and visit the other page.

What happened was a crowd of us was going down the stairs, my girlfriend walking beside me and we were holding hands. On the left was an escalator going up, which means people at the bottom of the stairs who wanted to go up had two choices:

#1. Take the escalator up, and not block anyone coming down the stairs.

#2. Make the illogical choice of coming up the stairs and blocking the crowd of people coming down.

And lo and behold two morons with their baseball caps turned backwards decided to be jerks and go up the stairs, blocking people on the way and slowing everyone down - meanwhile there was a perfectly EMPTY escalator going in the direction they wanted to go.

They could have - very easily - got on the empty escalator, gone up it at whatever speed they felt like going, and got to the top very quickly and easily.

But no, they decided to block the people coming down.

So I decided to complain very loudly about it.

"Wow, some people are just too stupid to know when to use the escalator."

And then when I got to the bottom of the stairs my girlfriend decided to play dumb and pretended not to know what I was talking about. She even tried to claim that it was not a crowd of people going down the stairs. (There was a pack of 15 people at least on the stairs when I said it.)

And then we got into an argument about what constitutes a crowd.

And she tried to claim that there was only 1 person ahead of us on the stairs when there was at least 6 people ahead of us, not counting the two jerks blocking the stairs.

When I realized she was doing this all deliberately, playing dumb and making me very frustrated I told her off for doing that to me. It was really frustrating. There was no reason for her to be arguing with me and she was trying to make me feel stupid by pretending to be stupid herself.

ARG!!!!!

I get frustrated and angry just thinking about the incident.

Basically my end point here is DO NOT PRETEND TO BE DUMB. You are only annoying people unnecessarily.

It is one thing if your name is Rob Ford and you are just naturally stupid (and annoy people with your sheer dumbness), but it is another thing entirely when you pretend to be stupid as a gag just so you can frustrate your fellow human beings by pretending you don't know what they are talking about.

I swear if she ever does that again I am going to switch the sugar with the salt so she ends up with a spoonful of salt in her coffee. Then we shall see who has the last laugh.

---

And then of course there are people who are just plain dumb. I blame our education system that places too much emphasis on looks (drama class, seriously?) and not enough emphasis on simple things like English writing, math, geography...

Soapstone Carving - How To Video

I found the video below very interesting.

The video is a how to video on making soapstone sculptures. I have always wanted to get into soapstone carving, but the tools look a bit intimidating and a huge investment for something that for me would be a bit of a lark. I prefer hobbies that are less expensive to try before getting into them full time.

I suppose if I could find a soapstone carving class somewhere in Toronto then it would be okay, because it would be cheaper and I would have the teacher practically holding my hand while I make mistakes. But getting into stone carving is just too much for me right now.

I will stick with my woodworking projects instead. Wood carving is much easier for me and takes less money to get into.

Plagiarism in Essay Writing

Years ago when I was working on my Doctorate of Musical Arts at U of T when I was accused of plagiarism in some older essay work I had done.

Basically what it was I had written an essay years earlier, before studying my doctorate, and one of my professors thought it looked fishy when another copy of the same essay showed up and tried to prove it was plagiarized.

Fortunately I cleared my name by promptly showing all professors and university staff involved my rough drafts for the essay (I had gone through 4 rough drafts) which had been saved years ago and I had just never deleted anything from that part of my life.

Basically the fact that I am a pack rat saved my bacon. I don't throw things out, especially electronic documents.

So word to the wise people, save your drafts and keep them for posterity's sake. You will not regret it.

What had happened however is that I had posted my finished essay (the one I was accused of plagiarizing) online and I had posted it without using my name - in other words, I had posted it anonymously.

Someone else (I don't know who) then copy pasted my essay off of the website and then submitted my essay as their own professor.

What the student didn't know was that they were handing in the same essay to the same professor (for the same class no less) as I had years earlier.

The professor reading my old essay felt it looked familiar, as if they had read it before. So they checked their records / refreshed their memory and remembered me.

Yada yada yada, the next thing I know they are accusing me of plagiarism, of selling my old essay for profit and were threatening to take my degree away from me. (Which they can legally do if they can prove plagiarism.)

Fortunately I did prove that the essay was mine by showing them my old rough drafts.

And I was able to show them the old forum website which I had posted the essay on. Still there, complete with the date it was originally posted. (And I could prove it was me who posted it because I still had the login and password to access the forum.)

My name was cleared, but having such a bureaucratic spotlight thrust upon me (especially when I had done nothing wrong) had made me not very comfortable about the whole plagiarism topic.

It took me years before I finally decided to write this post and talk openly about the incident. Now that I have my Doctorate I feel much firmer and safer about talking about the incident.

Universities have become increasingly aware that there is a lot academic dishonesty going on - especially amongst women, who make up 80% of customers for essay writing companies in Toronto, Hamilton and Kitchener/Waterloo. It is such a problem amongst female students that it has raised the grade point average of all the women in universities that have essay writing companies near the university campuses.

I think the issue for men is that men are too lazy and too cheap to hire someone else to write an essay for them, they would rather just write a poorly written essay, hand it in and get a lower mark rather than hire someone to write the essay for them.

The companies themselves have also legitimized themselves by also offering resume writing, CV and cover letter writing services. And even online classes on how to write assignments for classes.

Once they have a student hooked on their services it is really just a matter of time before students start paying for essays using their credit card.

The problem is even more prevalent at big universities that have a lot of prestige. The more important the school is the more competition there is from such companies that are offering essay and assignment writing services.

But I do have an important question.

What happens when these people get out into the real world and need to write reports for the company they work for? Are they going to hire someone else to write the report for them?

I have even heard tales of people hiring other people to write / create presentations for PowerPoint.

Back when I was in university we were still using overhead projectors and slideshows during presentations, but now with PowerPoint the information for the presentation can be written down and designed electronically, saved as PowerPoint document (PPT), sent to the person who purchased it... and then that person presents the finished product and utilizes their acting skills at lying.

How is an university professor going to accuse them of plagiarism when they are presenting it in person as a PowerPoint presentation.

I wish they would bring back overhead projectors and slideshows. Just my 2 cents.

Time constraints equals higher prices

I think I know why so many things are becoming more expensive these days.

It is the old problem of supply and demand, but the supply in this case is time.

Basically imagine you are running a business that most people use on weekends - only two days per week. And those two days are really hot in demand so that you end up booked up for months in advance on weekends, but comparatively less on weekdays.

In theory the thing to do would be to raise your prices on the weekends so you are charging two prices, one for weekdays and another price for weekends.

Case in point:

CardioTrek.ca is a personal training company and most of their clients want weekend or evening time slots. So much that their weekend slots are prebooked 5 months in advance - but the owner won't raise prices because he believes that would be unfair to new clients - and he thinks prices are already pretty high.

Another possibility would be if you have too many clients and not enough time to serve them all - that would be a good time to raise your prices for any new clients.

Case in point:

Toronto website design company designSEO.ca recently raised their hourly rates for website design work to $30 per hour. The reason? Too many clients. (They could hire more junior website designers but maybe that would be more of a nuisance. I don't know.)

Another possibility is lets says you are semi retired and do consulting work. You enjoy your free time and you don't want to work very often. So you jack your consulting fee up to $100 per hour or $200 per hour. Some ridiculous rate that makes it clear you only work for people willing to pay big bucks.

And there you go, three examples of why prices for services can skyrocket in a hurry due to time constraints.

And the more specialized and skilled the desired service is the higher the prices can go. That is why plumbers charge so much.

Why are modern tvs so slow?

Have you ever noticed how modern TVs are so slow compared to TVs during the 1980s?

I am serious. TVs are now slower than they used to be because now they are digital and have to load a blue screen or some logo nonsense before loading the actual tv guide, list of channels or the channel that was last on before you turned off the tv.

And this is my beef with a lot of technology today... More technology is actually making things slower and more cumbersome.

Examples

ATMs and Credit Cards vs cash.

Downloading tv shows vs VCRs.

Text messaging vs just phoning the person.

Tablets vs pen and paper.

The internet vs the YellowPages and an encyclopedia set.

eReaders vs books.

Downloading a taxi app and figuring out how to use vs just calling a cab.

And the list goes on. Seriously, technology is actually making life more complicated than it needs to be.

Katy Perry on Sesame Street - too much?

Below is the video of Katy Perry with Elmo, a clip that was pulled after complaints from upset parents who felt Katy Perry showed too much skin.

Please note that these are the same kind of parents who complained that Bert and Ernie were homosexuals living together.

As opposed to what the rest of us have been thinking for many years, that Bert and Ernie are either brothers or just friends. Sounds perfectly reasonable right?

Well the fact is you can not make these right wing religious nutjobs happy. Take for example the HIV positive puppet Kami who was introduced in 2002 for the South African version of Sesame Street, known as Takalani Sesame. The character was designed to promote tolerance and understanding in South Africa (which has a huge HIV epidemic), but instead it became a magnet for homophobia in America and a horde of Republican congressmen all "warned" Sesame Street against introducing any gay or HIV positive characters into the American version of the show.

So basically it would not matter how much skin (or how little skin) Katy Perry shows in any clip with Elmo on Sesame Street - the religious nutjobs were always going to get offended anyway. Which is amusing because these same Christians presumably go to church every Sunday and worship a statue of a mostly naked Jesus - who is best described as the zombie son of god.

So mostly naked zombie Jesus is apparently okay, but a little bit of Katy Perry's skin is not. That frankly is hypocritical and sexism.

I can only imagine what they would think if Katy Perry did a version of "Madonna with Child", a very common theme in paintings within Catholicism. They would probably decry her about showing too much skin again - regardless of how much she actually showed. It would not matter how innocent or religious the image was, because Katy Perry is a pop singing sex symbol it would be seen as religious sacrilege.

Edward de Gale's List of Fun Things To Do In Vaughan

#1. Visit Canada's Wonderland, Canada's largest outdoor theme park.

#2. Go Shopping at the Vaughan Mills Shopping Centre, and check out the many fine stores - including hunting, fishing and archery store Bass Pro.

#3. Visit the McMichael Canadian Art Collection.

#4. Go swimming at Splash Works.

#5. Take your cat for a walk!

#6. Explore some of Vaughan's many parks and wildlife areas, and take your camera to do some photography! Check out the Boyd Conservation Area, Mackenzie Glen District Park and the Kortright Centre for Conservation.

#7. Visit Reptilia - a zoo just for reptiles, over 200 different kinds.

#8. Go skiing at the Uplands Ski Centre or Uplands Golf Course.

#9. Visit the Canadian Soccer Hall of Fame.

#10. Go to LEGO LAND!

#11. Copper Creek Golf Club.

#12. Visit the IMAX theatre at the Colossus in Woodbridge.

#13. Go bowling at LUCKY STRIKE.

#14. Glow in the dark miniature golf at the PUTTING EDGE.

#15. The Kleinburg Golf Club - seriously, how many golf clubs does Vaughan have???

#16. Falls Lake Provincial Park.

#17. Play laser tag at Planet Play.

#18. Try your hands at piloting a plane at PrecisePilot Flight Simulations.

#19. Get shot with paint at Vaughan Paintball.

#20. Go bowfishing for carp in one of Vaughan regions many fine lakes and rivers. You just need your fishing license, a bow and bowfishing kit.